Wild dogs overrun parts of Detroit

Detroit is sounding more like a post-apocalyptic landscape from the Book of Eli with its dwindling population and dearth of civilized amenities like functional plumbing and law enforcement. Now the once-bustling manufacturing hub teems with packs of wild dogs.

Bloomberg reports the city’s postal workers now arm themselves with pepper spray. Some have stopped delivering to certain neighborhoods altogether to avoid packs of vicious once-domesticated Chihuahuas. Twenty-five mail workers suffered dog bites between October and July, the same month the pound stopped accepting canines.

One officer on the police department’s skeletal animal control staff says he found a pack of dogs splashing away in a basement flooded with water after thieves ripped the pipes out.

“The dogs were having a pool party,” Lapez Moore, 30, tells Bloomberg. “We went in and fished them out.”

The city, strapped with $18 billion long-term debt and a $400 million immediate shortfall, budgets just $1.6 million for animal control. It has one dog bite investigator – down from three – just as the problem continues to spiral out of control.

Some 1.8 million people used to inhabit Motor City. Today, it’s home to 700,000. About 70,000 buildings within the city lie vacant, many of them now home to the estimated 50,000 homeless dogs. Twenty-three animal control officers rescue about 40 dogs a day. But there’s nowhere to put them. Discovery Channel tried producing a show about the proliferation of strays, but the city’s film office shot down the idea.

Thankfully, non-profits are out there trying to tackle the stray dog problem. Detroit Dog Rescue is a no-kill shelter that aims to rescue dogs, especially during freezing winter months.

A Detroit rapper named Dan Carlisle posted a video last year about the strays, showing footage of collarless dogs wandering the icy streets. In one frame, a bony pit bull gnaws away on the remains of a frozen-to-death puppy.

Rolling Stone wrote the sheer number of abandoned dogs strikes a chord because it’s a glimpse of a world in which we’ve lost control.

“The image of wild dogs overrunning neighborhoods of a major American city is more than just a disturbing metaphor for our national decline – as with much of what’s happened in Detroit, it’s also a warning from the future for the rest of the country … Part of the reason the dogs have such free rein is that so many humans have left,” Mark Binelli wrote.